Richard Widerkehr
When It Seems That Crime Pays
In the gray rain, I am running on our chip-seal road,
not thinking about money, just noticing six ducks
take off from their temporary pond. Was I a gypsy
about money? When fifteen cents equalled a raspberry
one-stick popsicle, I made fraudulent entries in the ledger
our Dad had given me to keep track of my fifty-cents-a week
allowance. Double entry, no less. I would write down "bus fare,
fifteen cents" in the ledger, hide a dime and nickel
in a separate drawer of my bureau, so I could buy
the raspberry one-stick of desire that numbed
my tongue, roof of my mouth delectably. I have heard adverbs
are a sin, but I digress. The one-stick tasted mine, mine, mine.
When I confessed my sin to our Dad near the end
of his life, he laughed and said, "Better that you became
a good poet than a bad accountant." I still don't know
when to come out of the rain.
Bio
Richard Widerkehr's fifth book of poems, Missing The Owl, is available from Shanti Art Publications. He also has three chapbooks and one novel, Sedimental Journey (Tarragon Books). His work has appeared in over one hundred publications, including Shot Glass Journal and Rattle. One of his poems was broadcast by Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. Richard won two Hopwood first prizes for poetry at the University of Michigan, three Sue C. Boynton awards, and first prize for a short story at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference.